


strawberry gashes

by margaretthatcherdog (harrisonswells)



Category: Glee
Genre: Blood, Blood and Injury, Depressed Blaine Anderson, Gen, Graphic Self-Harm, Hurt Blaine Anderson, M/M, Past Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel, References to Depression, Self-Harm, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28478100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harrisonswells/pseuds/margaretthatcherdog
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Sebastian Smythe
Kudos: 14





	strawberry gashes

Blaine didn’t know how it started. He didn’t quite remember. But, some nights, his thoughts would creep up on him. They’d drag him down and make him feel like he couldn’t get out. He tried his best to deal with it, tried not to let it bother him too much. But, as time went on, those thoughts started to seep into the daytime. He couldn’t tell when they were coming. He’d be in class or at dinner or just sitting around doing nothing, and thoughts of doubt and insecurity and dread would begin. It started becoming unbearable. No matter how many therapists or psychologists or psychiatrists that tried to help him or how many medications he was put on, nothing seemed to help him. 

The nights only became more frequent and severe. Blaine found himself huddled up in bed, shaking or crying or both, not knowing how to handle anything he was feeling. Some nights, it got so bad that he had to turn to bad habits. 

He hated doing it. He hated that he had to do it to feel any better. He wanted to stop, but he could never make it more than a week or two. He hated that it only helped for an hour at the most. It ended up making him feel worse afterwards, but at least this way he got some relief. 

Kurt had found out about it, of course. Blaine had been doing it since before they met. It was hard to avoid him finding out when they had been so close, spending so much time together. He’d seen bandages and it was easy for Blaine to pass it off as just him falling and hurting himself accidentally, but it was harder to lie to Kurt when he got a look at the scars. He was bound to find out eventually. 

Kurt had first seen them when they were healed, thankfully. He’d been clean for a couple of weeks. Kurt’s seeing wasn’t on purpose, Blaine’s sleeves had ridden up when they were laying in bed together and Kurt had gotten an accidental peek. He’d asked what had happened with genuine, innocent curiosity at first, not realizing what the scars were from. Blaine wanted to lie to Kurt about them, but he knew there were more that Kurt was going to see eventually that were much more obvious. Plus, Kurt could tell when Blaine was lying. He knew him too well. Blaine broke and told Kurt everything. 

Kurt’s reaction was just about what Blaine had expected. He freaked out. He didn’t understand, he didn’t know why Blaine - or anyone - would do that to himself. He got upset with Blaine, simply because he didn’t know what else to do. He was confused and it upset with him because he couldn’t understand, at least that was what Blaine told himself when Kurt was practically screaming at him for coping in the only way he knew how 

Blaine’s next bad night was just a few days later. He figured now that Kurt knew, maybe he’d be able to help. Blaine ended up calling him late that night, but he didn’t get the support or comfort he was needing. Kurt reacted the same way he did earlier that week; he wasn’t trying to calm Blaine down or comfort him, he just got down on him for what Blaine did to himself and upset with Blaine for waking him up so late at night. It did nothing but make him feel worse. Blaine’s clean streak was broken that night. 

Things were better when Sebastian found out. After the break up with Kurt, things had gotten really bad. Forget about making it a week, he could barely make it a day without it. Sebastian was the one who helped him recover. He was supportive of Blaine. He tried his best to understand him, even if he didn’t know what he was going through. He told Blaine to call him if things ever got bad again and if he was thinking about doing anything to himself. 

“No matter what time it is, call me. I don’t care if it wakes me up. I want you to be safe,” is what he had said. Blaine was certainly glad he had someone supporting him through all of this. 

That didn’t stop the feelings. It didn’t stop the bad days, it didn’t stop the bad nights. 

Tonight was a particularly bad night.

Blaine didn’t know what to do. He was sitting in the dark, shaking. His thoughts were racing, it felt like they were going a thousand miles a minute.

He’d tried everything he normally would. He’d been getting better with that recently; not going straight to the bad things first. Blaine tried the breathing his one of his past therapists had suggested, even though it had never worked for him in the past. He tried distracting himself, but nothing was good enough. He even tried consulting one of those lists of alternatives a psychiatrist had given him that never seemed to have the same effect. Nothing worked, as usual. 

He considered calling Sebastian. He’d never called him before. It wasn’t that he didn’t have to, he definitely should’ve some nights, it’s that he was scared. Realistically, he knew Sebastian wasn’t like Kurt. He wasn’t the same, he didn’t react the same way. But that didn’t stop Blaine from thinking that he would.

So, knowing it was a bad idea, Blaine made his way to his bathroom. 

He locked the door behind him. Nobody in the house was awake right now and he was pretty sure his bedroom door was locked too, but he figured he may as well. He flicked on the switch for the fan to block out any noise before heading to the cupboard under the sink. He reached past the half-empty bottles of hair gel and the stack of towels to grab an old, ripped-up plastic bag. He moved over to sit on the cold edge of the bathtub. Shaky hands pulled out the rolled up and blood stained towel and started unrolling it. He lifted up one of the razor blades. It was dulled and there were still some old brown dried stains on it from the last time this happened. 

Blaine pulled back the sleeve on his sweater and stared down at his arm. It had been just over a week since he had done anything, hadn’t even picked a scab. He should’ve been proud of himself. For months after Kurt broke up with him, he could barely make it past a couple of days. But a week still felt like nothing. Most of them had barely begun to heal, just scabbed over and still slightly red. Some of the older ones were smaller and less irritated, and there were some areas that were just scars. He used to try to avoid scars, but eventually, he just stopped caring. 

He fiddled with the blade between his fingers for a moment, admiring the way the metal reflected the bathroom light. He knew this was a bad idea. He knew he could just call Sebastian, he could talk him down. He’d go to bed, get up the next morning, and go to school and everything would be fine. It would be okay. But what if it wasn’t? He couldn’t take that chance. Not again. 

Blaine moved the blade down to his arm, between a couple of scabbed over cuts. He pressed the corner down and slid across. The dull blade barely pierced the skin, the tiniest bit of blood bubbling up to the surface. Blaine moved the blade down slightly and pressed harder this time, resulting in a slightly deeper cut. It was still mostly superficial but drew a lot of blood, exactly the combination Blaine wanted. 

He continued like that for a while, applying a little more pressure each time as the blade slowly got duller. He probably overcompensated, some of the wounds growing deeper as he moved down his arm. He used the towel, an old white one he’d taken from his parents’ bathroom, to wipe up the blood and press down on the cuts to hopefully stop some of the bleeding. Once they were mostly done bleeding, Blaine rolled his sleeves down and shoved the towel and blade back into the bag. He just tossed them onto the bathroom floor, not bothering to properly put them away. He’d deal with them in the morning. 

Blaine made his way back to his bedroom, trying to be as quiet as he could so he didn’t wake anyone up. He climbed into his bed, exhaustion quickly taking over him. The pain was starting to set in, a dull, stinging sensation coming from his left arm. He was able to fall asleep after a while despite the pain.

Blaine was woken up by his alarm a few hours later. He checked his phone and found a text from Sebastian. 

_morning baby. did you have a good night?_

Blaine smiled at his phone and texted back. _good morning_ His fingers ran over the scabbed cuts. _i slept great :)_


End file.
